Hair-Care Settlement Calls for Little off the Top : Company, Franchisee Will Pay $12,500, Stop Saying Products Cure Baldness

A San Francisco-based hair products company and its Garden Grove franchisee have been barred from promoting their products as hair restorers and will pay $12,500 in judgments under an agreement with the Orange County district attorney’s office.

That office earlier this year filed a civil complaint against Smart Hair Care California Ltd. Inc. of San Francisco and Keith Kor Inc., its Garden Grove franchisee, alleging false and misleading advertising.

The settlement calls for Smart Hair Care to pay $10,000 in prosecuting costs and for Keith Kor to pay $2,500 in civil penalties, Deputy Dist. Atty. John L. Flynn III said Thursday. Flynn said the companies did not admit wrongdoing in consenting to the judgments.

The county’s consumer fraud unit alleged that the companies promised that their treatments, which included shampoos, conditioners and protein pills, would stop excessive hair loss and stimulate the growth of fuller, thicker hair.

The complaint charged that Smart Hair and Keith Kor distributed advertising material showing before-and-after pictures of balding men who they said grew full heads of hair within six months by using the products.

Under the agreement with the district attorney’s office, the companies are forbidden from making such claims in Orange County. In addition, Keith Kor is forbidden from selling, delivering or giving away unapproved new drugs.

An attorney for Smart Hair said the company is no longer in business.

Hugh Keith, a partner in Keith Kor, said he and co-partner James Kordos still are in the hair-care business, selling new products through a company called Nuvell Hair Care.

“We’ve got control over our advertising now. We had nothing to do with it earlier,” Keith said.

He said that Nuvell, a new company in which he is an owner, has no ties to Smart Hair but that its products are based on a treatment process similar to Smart Hair’s.

Many of its materials are similar, although the ingredients are not the same, he said. “Our products will promote fuller hair. We’ll take a different advertising approach.”

Flynn said the district attorney’s consumer fraud office is monitoring Nuvell.